Thursday, March 17, 2011

With Regards to the Idiots Who Try to Save Money

I got a bit into Runescape again more recently, what with Jagex effectively abandoning the Stellar Dawn Official Forums, their new leadership change and teaming up with Hasbro to develop an MMORPG based on the Transformers franchise.

Guess what that means for Stellar Dawn?

I hope Transformers Online fucking burns.

So like I said, I got back into Runescape a bit and went Castle Warring (my all-time favourite minigame). Whilst in the waiting room, I got into a discussion of why I was rich, had a Dragonfire Shield, Godsword, Armadyl Armour, but still used my Barrow's armour over a set of Bandos armour.

I did the math myself more than a year ago, when on a my shark killing fest and came to a groundbreaking conclusion;

Bandos items are collected, cost ineffective pieces of shit.

It's been a year down the road and prices have changed, but the conclusion doesn't.

I'll do the math again just for you.

As of this posting, the Bandos Chestplate sells for a hefty 19.2 million and the Plateskirt runs for 21.4 million.

Guthan's Platebody is 604k and Torag's Platelegs are 849k. Guthan's is the cheapest and all Barrows Platebodies have equal stats.

So Barrows armour is well over 20 times more expensive than Bandos Armour. Logic dictates that such a discrepancy in price would mean Bandos was far superior.

Which means even though you're paying 30 times the price of Guthan's Platebody, Bandos is consistently worse. -15 Magic Attack is meaningless, as no sane person mages in a Barrows Platebody. -1 Ranged Defence is a 0.77% difference.

-4 Strength Bonus means a difference of 10 lifepoints in damage.-1 Prayer Bonus is really, really tiny. Especially if you are in grave need of a Prayer Bonus, you will wear something with a better boost. Like Verac's.

So you're paying 30 times the price of Guthan's Platebody for an item that is consistently worse.

Let's see if the Tassets fare better compared to Platebody and Chestplate issue.

Once again, you're paying 25 times more money for an item that has consistently lower stats. -1 Ranged Defence in this case is only less than a 1.5% difference. The Strength and Prayer Bonuses still don't justify 25 times the price or use of armour that is worse in 2 thirds of categories.

Combined, the difference is quite dramatic.

When comparing Guthan's Chestplate worn with Torag's Platelegs to the Bandos Chestplate worn with the Bandos Tassets, the Barrow's equipment has...

A Rune Full Helm has less Stab, Slash and Summoning Defence compared to the difference. Meaning if you wear Bandos over Barrows, you've given up the equivalent of a Rune Full Helm in Stab, Slash and Summoning Defence without using a single extra slot and saving over 20 times the money.

"But we save so much money on repairs!"

That's the best reason people have for paying exorbitant prices.

Okay. Fine. Let's stack the repair costs of Barrows against the buying price of Bandos armour.

We'll start with some stats. Let's assume the character repairing the Barrows uses an NPC repair, not an armour stand at home, so must pay full price for repairs. You know, because his skills suck.

That means a total of 85850 is spent on repairs for Barrows armour every 15 hours.

85850 x 250 = 21.46 million.

Meaning that you can repair both Barrows items fully for 250 times before it matches up to the cost of a single set of Bandos Tassets.

85850 x 223 = 19.1 million.

Meaning you can repair both Barrows items fully another 223 times before it matches the cost of the Bandos Chestplate.

The total number of times (at today's prices) you can repair your Guthan's Platebody and Torag's Platelegs 473 times, before it is equal to buying the Bandos Chestplate and Platelegs.

So 473 full repairs meant the items fully degraded 473 times.

473 x 15 = 7095 hours

That's 7095 hours of combat without a break, before Barrows items can degrade enough to make up the cost of Bandos items.

7095 ÷ 24 = 295 days.

So you have to spend 295 days fighting without a single break for eating, sleep or even repairs to make up for the Bandos items' price.

My total level is 1882. I have 4 skills at level 99.

I have spent 172 days on Runescape in real time, spread over half a decade.

So somehow, you need to spend over 50% more time fighting with Barrows armour than I have spent training every skill on my character 1882 levels, before you save enough money on repairs to make Bandos items cost effective.

The Bandos items still have consistently worse stats.

Does that answer the question to which one is better?

Is that a lesson to the people who spent over 20 times what they could have for a worse item under the guise of saving money in the long term?

4 comments:

My goodness, I'd the slightest idea that the Bandos equipment stats were lower than the Barrows' equipment; I've always had that assumption that Bandos had t'have been higher with its price height. I have, howe'er, always known that the Bandos equipment were very price inefficient and are regarded more as trophies than equipment.

In all honesty, I don't mind not being the greatest in battle. I find that my aesthetics is more enjoyable than the actual battling. Though I'ven't consummated all of the quests, I like t'view my character more as that heroine who is unique and unlike anyone else (like what e'ery hero should be). I've ought t'draw my questing equipment one day after I've completed with my casual clothes (without tracing). I've also drawn a chibi of my character and will perhaps one day trace't on my computer with Inkscape.

I've just read the Press Releases article of Transformers Online. Apparently Jagex intends t'spend approximately a year on this ere release. Therefore I'm sure that Stellar Dawn should still possess by far greater quality. And if 'tis dates that you're concerned about, I'm sure that this does not hinder the Stellar Dawn branch as devastatingly as 'tmay appear...

Which means for a full year, they have to divert all valuable personnel from Stellar Dawn and Runescape to put together this Transformers Online, because a year isn't time enough to screen and hire an entirely new team.

Compare Stellar Dawn, an upcoming, new brand with a multi million dollar brand like Transformers. They're both MMOs. Now see it from the shareholder's view.

Shareholders have no emotional investment in Jagex or its games. They're in it for money.